Tucker looks at me with remorseful eyes, his first crack of emotion since I exposed his lying ass. “It wasn’t like that, Heidi. You both needed something from each other. You just couldn’t see it yet.”
I look down at the empty, orange bottle straining under my tight grip and throw it at him. “What’s this used to treat? What does it do?”
Tucker looks over the plastic bottle that once housed a prescription for Androcur and shrugs. “A number of uses, one being prostate cancer.”
“Stop bullshitting me, Tucker. Does Ransom have prostate cancer?”
He releases a breath, letting his shoulders sag in defeat. “No.”
“So why did you prescribe it? What is he taking it for?”
I watch him swallow down the last of his lies, before he closes his regret-tinged eyes. “Hypersexuality. Sex addiction.”
Sex addiction? Ransom’s a sex addict?
The first time I saw him drunk and high—it was as if it was a reaction to something. Like he was compensating for something much deeper with booze and pills. He told me he wasn’t a junkie, and I believed him. I wanted to. Now I see he was being honest, which is much more than I can say for my loving husband. I just don’t understand how he could put me in the hands of someone who needs sex like a drug. He was serving Ransom a hefty dose of X on a cocaine-dusted platter.
I look at the man I love, the man I’d built a life with. The man I had once considered having children with because that was what he wanted. We struggled together, fought together, cried together, laughed together. He was a piece of me, and up until this moment, I had believed he was the very best piece. But he was a liar. He was a fraud. And now, I can’t tell if I’m just looking at a stranger. I know absolutely nothing about him at all.
“I have to go,” I say, turning toward the door. “I have to go find Ransom. He could be lying at the bottom of the pool, no thanks to you. Were you trying to kill him? By prescribing all those pills?”
His face contorts in horror, and he inhales sharply as if he’s just taken a blow to the kidney. “No! Of course not. Ransom is a sex addict, but he also suffers from bouts of depression, anxiety, ADHD. Those pills were necessary to his treatment program.”
“And me? Was I necessary to his treatment program?”
Tucker diverts his eyes to the floor, unable to face the evidence of his transgression. He gave another man his wife—the woman he had vowed to love and protect—in some convoluted attempt to help her help his patient.
“Where is he? I’ll go talk to him,” he finally says.
I shake my head in frustration. “Don’t you get it? I don’t know! There’re empty pill bottles and alcohol. And he’s not answering my text messages.”
That certainly gets his attention, and Tucker jumps to his feet, pulling his cell out of his pocket. “We have to find him,” he says, headed for the door.
I put my anger aside and accept his assistance. Two people are better than one, and right now, Ransom needs me more than I need to crucify my husband. But there will be hell to pay later. You can bet on that.
“You check outside,” I instruct, going into boss bitch mode. “Check the pool areas, the bungalows . . . the lagoon. See if anyone has seen him. I’ll search inside and check with the staff. I know there are surveillance cameras. Justice can check for me.”
Tucker nods his head and looks at me solemnly before turning toward the doors. “I never meant to hurt either one of you—you know that. I thought that if you got what you needed, we could have a fresh start, and maybe . . . maybe I could learn to love you the way you needed to be loved. And I thought if Ransom got what he needed in a safe, controlled environment, he could see that he could tame the urges of his body and focus on the needs of his heart. That maybe he could open himself enough to see that he too could find love and happiness and acceptance. I just didn’t bet on him finding all those things with you.”
I stare at the stranger in front of me and feel . . . nothing. I know I love him deep inside, and I know he cares for me. But now I’ve gone to that place where none of that exists. That emotionally barren wasteland where love can no longer grow and thrive under the harsh conditions of his lies and deceit. Maybe one day I’ll be able to forgive him. Maybe we’ll even look back on this and be able to take a deep, cleansing breath, exhaling it all into the wind like ash. But for now, he doesn’t get to matter. He doesn’t get to make me feel sympathetic to him. Not when there’s a man out there who needs me to save him. A man who looked at me like I was his person, like I would be the answer to all the difficult questions of his heart. The same way I had once looked at Tucker.
My husband didn’t expect for Ransom and me to fall in love, but he let it happen. And for that, he’s just as guilty for our transgressions.
“Be careful what you wish for,” I say with an air of finality.
I don’t say goodbye as I turn and walk away. But I should.
Chapter Thirty
It doesn’t take long before I realize that Ransom has left the property. When I find Justice in his office and tell him what’s happened, he instantly springs into action, reviewing the surveillance tapes of the last hour or so.
“What’s going on?” Riku asks as he passes the open office door, his arms stacked with what looks to be giant leeks.
“Ransom. Have you seen him?” I try to keep the alarm out of my voice, but I know I’m failing. It hasn’t been long since I left his abandoned room and those empty pill bottles, but every minute that ticks by is another minute that his life could be in serious peril.
“No, not since early this morning. We got up before sunrise to hit up the fish market and grab produce. Actually, I was looking for him too. He offered to park the company truck in the garage for me after we unloaded. Still need to grab the keys from him.”
Justice and I lock eyes, both of us wearing identical looks of dread. It only lasts a second before he turns back to the surveillance footage, narrowing his search down to the compound’s gates.
“There,” he says pointing to the screen. “The Oasis truck, leaving at . . .” he squints at the time stamp and then at his watch, “shit, just ten minutes ago.”
Ten minutes?
I could have stopped him. I could have found him before he had a chance to leave. Instead, I was confronting Tucker, something we could’ve done together.
Justice opens a drawer and produces a set of keys. “Here. Try to get to him. I’ll find Tucker and we’ll be right behind you.”
I take the key fob dangling from his fingers and hold them to my chest, nearly emotional with gratitude. There’s still a chance I can catch him. And considering the logo on the keychain says Porsche, my chances are pretty good.
I race to the garages and hit the Unlock button to see which beauty lights up. While Justice may have a huge estate, he isn’t really big on flash and pretention. However, his love for fast cars must be the exception. Ally once told me that Justice didn’t have a guilty pleasure. She had tried to corrupt him with ice cream and bad TV, and while he was a good sport about it, he was pretty clean in the vice department. But now that I see the full extent of his car collection—Ferrari and Bentley and Jag, oh my—it’s plain to see where he gets his naughty kicks.
I slide into the 911 GTS and rev the engine, relishing the sound of pure power and fury. While I’d love to savor this experience, I don’t even get time to enjoy the butter-soft leather and the luxury accouterments. Not if I want to catch Ransom.
Luckily, the journey between the compound and the next signs of civilization is merely a long, flat, dusty stretch of two-lane highway. If Ransom is on the road, I should find him, and catching up to him shouldn’t be an issue in the Porsche.